Looking for a place to cool off? Check out the prominent dessert chain 설빙 (Sulbing)! They have all sorts of awesome looking desserts to beat the heat. They specialize in 빙수 (bingsu), which is a finely shaved ice dessert, but they have so much more to offer! I’ve been here two times and have been pretty happy with this place. You can find the closest location to you here!
The two 설빙 branches that I’ve been to (Sinchon and Hapjeong) were very comfortable and had nice interiors. They were also fairly large establishments. They have a pretty large menu as well, with the most popular ones represented by fake displays.
치즈설빙(Cheese Sulbing) – 9000 won
The cheese sulbing is shaved ice covered with shaved almonds, cheesecake bites, Parmesan (?) cheese, and a scoop of ice cream topped with one cherry-looking fruit. The menu showed a lot more fruits, but that’s the only inaccurate representation I felt. Otherwise, I was pretty impressed with the real thing.
The ice is completely covered in cheese powder to the point I thought it was just the texture of the ice. I didn’t realize what I was eating until much later. The cheese gives the ice a very light and slightly salty flavor that is hard to describe, but it was very pleasant. The cheesecakes bits were deliciously creamy and not overly sweet. Mixed with the almonds it created a nice combination of texture and flavors in each bite!
Make sure to add the condensed milk to the ice once you run out of cheese powder. The ice by itself is actually quite plain and the milk adds a little bit of sweetness to overcome that. You can get refills near the service areas.
I’m a big fan of this dish, but you do have to be a little bit careful with the cheese powder. If you don’t mix it well with the shaved ice, you may choke on it!
인절미 아이스 크림 (Injeolmi Ice Cream) – 4500 won
The injeolmi ice cream was a huge value at 4500 won. You get two reasonably large scoops of ice cream topped with shaved almonds, caramel, and of course injeolmi. I’m a big fan of injeolmi because of the textures and nutty sweetness the powder adds. The injeolmi bits were very sweet and gratuitously drizzled with the caramel sauce. You do have to be careful to mix the injeolmi powder very well with the ice cream, because just like the cheese powder, the natural dryness of it can cause your throat to be a little bit irritated. This was quite a delightful dish!
I really hope to try more of the items on the menu as I have been very impressed with this place so far. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do! If you have any other dessert places to recommend, please let me know in the comments below!
Finding the Seoul 